Changes

He notes, "There are obviouslythose who got disenchanted anddropped out, but there are those whoare building up their system. Businessis better than it's ever been." He notes that Unisource "couldn'tsupport" the initial period of "panicbuying" because of a lack of enoughWATS lines. Smith says, "I'Tm m hoping TI willencourage third parties to do evenmore than they did before. One of theproblems with TI was they wouldn't letanybody else make software." Smith says she specializes in TIproducts. "Some people, as soon as they sellout what they have for TI, are pullingout," she says. "I'Tm m getting more andmore third-party business. We're thecenter for TI in Reading, and even thebig department stores are sendingcustomers to me.''" ==MARKETING CHANGES?== ''"I never had a whole lot of money toadvertise in the first place," Smithsays. ' '"Had I been in the thick of advertisingI probably would have madesome changes." "We rent a lot of their softwarenow,'' " Ficklin says of his TI inventory."We kept enough in stock so we couldrent it. We're selling some that wehave enough of." He notes that if CarCor-Comp comes outwith its planned Phoenix. ComputerShows will sell software, but if not,"we'll stay with rented." "I advertise less locally and do moreadvertising through my list ofnames," Mccutcheon says. "I have agood-sized list of names of people whoown a TI. Every time a new productcomes out, I want to deal with peoplewho already have co,nputerscomputers." "At this point we haven't changed ittoo much," Burger says of herbusiness.bu?iness.','"We're waiting to see what happenswith CarCor-Comp and the Phoenix. TheTI market is still strong. We probablywill diversify," she says. "I don't know that we've changedour marketing as much as we'vebeefed up our warehousing andinvestment in inventory," Reitansays. "Our catalog has to be republishedmore frequently because themarket is changing more." He says Unisource now plans toissue a hardbound catalog every quarterat a cost of about $75,000. ==FUTURE PROSPECTS==·'"We're all hopeful for the Phoenix,''" Reitan comments. "We are CarCor-Compdistributors and looking forward tothat product as well as our otherproducts."